Lords Sitting of 6 May 1884

MINUTES.
PUBLIC BILLS—First Reading—Fisheries (Ireland) * (77).
Second Reading—Public Health (Confirmation of Byelaws) * (76); Local Government (Ireland) Provisional Order (The Labourers Act) (Carrick-on-Suir) (54); Local Government (Ireland) Provisional Orders (Naas, &c.) * (55).
Third Reading—Marriages Legalisation (Wood Green Congregational Church) * (66), and passed.

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL v. CHARLES BRADLAUGH, M.P.—ACTION AT BAR.
  PETITION.
  Petition of Charles Bradlaugh, M.P., praying that an Officer of the House may attend at the hearing of a cause commenced by the Attorney General, on behalf of Her Majesty, against the Petitioner, and produce the Journal of the House for the year 1882 (presented on Thursday last): Ordered as prayed.
LOCAL GOVERNMENT (IRELAND) PROVISIONAL ORDER (THE LABOURERS ACT) (CARRICK-ON-SUIR) BILL.
(The Lord President.)
LOCAL GOVERNMENT (IRELAND) PROVISIONAL ORDER (THE LABOURERS ACT) (CARRICK-ON-SUIR) BILL.

  (NO. 54.) SECOND READING.
  Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
  Moved, "That the Bill be now read 2a."—(The Lord President.)
  THE EARL OF LONGFORDsaid, that this was one of the first Bills that had been brought forward for the confirmation of Provisional Orders that had been made under the Act which was very properly intended to provide labourers' cottages in Ireland. That Act was passed rather hurriedly; two or three defects in it were pointed out at the time the measure was passing through Parliament; and it was even observed that, in the form in which it stood, it was totally unworkable. If it had not been totally unworkable, it had, at all events, caused a great deal of confusion, and might be the cause of a great deal more. The authorities who were intrusted with the administration of the Act were the Sanitary Authority—that was, the Board of Guardians—who had now constituted themselves, to a large extent, political debating societies; and, while not always keeping in view the advan-

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  tages of those for whose benefit the Act was passed, disregarded the rights of anyone who was' not in favour with them. In short, they mixed up politics with the matter. At the same time, the Sanitary Boards had large powers to choose sites and take possession of them under certain formalities. The Lord President had asked them to carefully watch the working of the Act; and he thought it right to urge on him that one Amendment, at least, should be introduced to provide that sites taken by compulsion should, at all events, have a frontage to some public road. At present, the sites which were selected were often a very considerable distance from any public road, and even in the centre of a man's farm, which certainly was not intended by the Act. It was very desirable indeed that the choice of sites should be carried out under some more responsible authority, so as to cause as little inconvenience as possible. The working of the Act, he believed, had caused great expense, and was the cause of great dissatisfaction to those with whose rights it interfered; and he thought that, at all events, in the respect he referred to, it ought to be worked so as to trouble those concerned as little as possible.
  VISCOUNT MIDLETONsaid, he entirely endorsed all the allegations that had been made by his noble Friend in regard to the working of the Act. In Ireland a man had always a great objection to building labourers' cottages on his own land; but that objection did not apply to the building of cottages on the lands of his neighbours, and the only protection they had was the Boards of Guardians, which, as they had heard, had taken up a political stand. The result of this was that the Act had done far more mischief than it had conferred benefits. He hoped, however, that in future the authorities would take care that the benefits which it was intended that the Act should confer upon the labourers should not be neutralized by the action of the Boards of Guardians.
  LORD CARLINGFORD (LORD PRESIDENT of the COUNCIL)said, that he did not like to express any opinion of his own at this moment on the working of the Act, which had, no doubt, been attended with very considerable difficulty; but he would take care to bring to the attention of the Irish Government,
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  and especially of the Chief Secretary, the points raised by the noble Lords.
  Motion agreed to; Bill read 2a accordingly.

  PARLIAMENT—REPRESENTATION OF IRELAND.—RESOLUTION.
  LORD WAVENEYhad given Notice of his intention to move a Resolution—
  "That all boroughs of not more than 1,000 registered voters at the time of passing any Bill for redistribution of seats in Parliament in Ireland shall be incorporated into the representation of the counties wherein they are situate by the addition of so many members to the county representation as these boroughs shall have aforetime returned to Parliament, to be elected then and thenceforward on the county franchise;"
  but before his Lordship rose,
  THE EARL OF REDESDALE (CHARMAN of COMMITTEES)said, that he objected to the noble Lord proceeding with this Motion. On a former evening he had pointed out objections to the Resolution, as being against the Standing Orders of the House. He asked their Lordships whether they were in a position to agree to such a Resolution as the one upon the Paper, which had reference to a redistribution of seats, and which particularly affected the other House of Parliament. There was another objection to the Resolution. He noticed that last night, or rather that morning at 2 o'clock, there was a Bill for the redistribution of seats before the other House, which was counted out upon it. Therefore, there was a Bill before the other House on the subject of this Resolution. He thought that if the noble Lord would consider the matter, he would hardly propose such a Resolution as that which now stood upon their Lordships' Paper in his name.
  EARL GRANVILLEsaid, that when the Notice was laid upon the Table he was not aware that there was a Bill before the other House on the subject; but now the attention of their Lordships had been called to that fact he had to say that it would be clearly out of Order to proceed with the Motion.
  LORD WAVENEYsaid, that the noble Earl at the Table (the Earl of Redesdale) had stated that his Resolution had reference to a redistribution of seats; but he would point out that there was a great distinction between a Redistribution Bill and what would be the result

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  of his Resolution if it were agreed to in a Bill. He would, therefore, proceed to bring on his Resolution.
  THE EARL OF REDESDALE (CHAIRMAN of COMMITTEES)rose to Order, and said the noble Lord stated that his Resolution had nothing to do with the redistribution of seats; but those were the very words of the Resolution, and the fact that this Resolution unquestionably dealt with a subject regarding which there was a Bill before the other House made it out of Order to bring on the Resolution in that House.
  LORD WAVENEYpointed out that his Resolution had reference not to redistribution of seats, but to the incorporation of the seats existing in boroughs with those in the counties—it was a question of allocation, and not one of any particular redistribution. And unless any noble Lord had other objections to make he would proceed with his Resolution.
  THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURYrose to Order. He felt as strongly on this subject as the noble Earl the Leader of the House and the Chairman of Committees that the Resolution was out of Order and should not be proceeded with, and they were not so powerless as to allow the noble Lord to proceed in spite of the objections offered against his doing so; he would, therefore, move that the noble Lord be not now heard.
  Moved, "That the Lord Waveney be not now heard."—(The Marquess of Salisbury.)
  On Question? agreed to.
  LORD WAVENEYthereupon gave Notice that on an early day he would call attention to the numerical proportion of the boroughs of Ireland.

EGYPT—THE PROPOSED CONFERENCE.

  QUESTION. OBSERVATIONS.
  THE EARL OF CARNARVON: My Lords, I rise to inquire in what position the negotiations with regard to the proposed Conference on the financial affairs of Egypt now stand; and to move for a copy of the invitation to the Conference addressed by Her Majesty's Government to the various Powers, and I should have liked to have added to the Motion the words, "And the answers received from the different Powers." I have observed,
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  from the ordinary channels of information, that an answer was made in "another place" to my right hon. Friend (Mr. Bourke) that it was wholly inconsistent with the practice of Parliament to lay these answers on the Table before they had been received. If that be so, and if that be the practice of Her Majesty's Government, I have nothing to say. At the same time, I think it right to call attention to one rather singular incident in these transactions, because I notice that on the 1st of May, when a Question on this subject was put to the Prime Minister, he was reported to have said that the proposal of Her Majesty's Government to hold a Conference had been accepted by the Powers; whereas on May 2nd, when he was asked whether he would produce these answers, he said—"We are not accustomed to produce the answers of Foreign Powers before they are received." There is a certain difference between these statements, and I do not know how to reconcile them. I am at a loss to understand whether it is that the Government object to produce these answers at all, or whether they object to produce them before they are received. If they have been received, as, according to the statement of the Prime Minister, they seem to have been, I trust there will be no objection to produce them; if they have not been received, I must leave the noble Earl to explain how the Prime Minister was able to state on the 2nd of May that the proposals had been accepted. The noble Earl the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs has on several occasions lately taken me to task for various things I have said, or have been supposed to have said. A few days ago he described me as a severe critic of Her Majesty's Government, and the remarks I made seem to have pressed rather hard. Last night, again, in answer to a very simple Question which I ventured to put, and which had no reference to Her Majesty's Government, he said that I claimed a monopoly of knowledge on a particular subject. I have no doubt it was inconvenient to Her Majesty's Government to be asked Questions as to the progress of this Conference. Of them it would be much more true to say that they had claimed a monopoly of knowledge to themselves, our knowledge having been extracted from the Papers to which I refer. But, at the same time, the remedy

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  is in their own hands. If they would deal a little more frankly with us, and take Parliament a little more into their confidence in matters of this kind, Questions such as I am about to put would be less frequent, and the speeches concerning them would be more brief. I think, in the circumstances, we should fail in our duty if we hesitated to put Questions which the supreme urgency of the case seem to me to warrant. There are two questions which are at this moment directly before the public mind—one is the position of General Gordon, and the other is of this financial Conference. I do not wish to say a word with regard to General Gordon—that is a separate question. What I desire to call attention to is the position and progress of business with regard to this financial Conference. It is a most important question, and one which goes far beyond the hour, and it is most important that Parliament should have a clear understanding as to the bases of the Conference. In the morning papers yesterday there appeared a Memorandum which purported to be the invitation sent by Her Majesty's Government to the Powers. The text of the invitation was not given; but I think it is not too much to ask the Government to give Parliament, not only the Memorandum, but the text of the invitation in an authoritative form. And here I cannot but say that we owe a very great debt to the public Press, in that, but for them, we should have been absolutely in the dark as to the condition in which affairs were. I am not going to discuss the figures or statements in that Memorandum. It is sufficient for my purpose to say—if I gathered it rightly—that the Memorandum set forth that the present deficits, accumulated during the last three years, amount to the enormous sum of £8,000,000 sterling, and that there is a deficit during the current year of £500,000 more. These figures come to something not far short of bankruptcy; and it is on that ground, as I understand it, that the Conference is to meet. Upon the very threshold, so to speak, of that Conference, I must take the opportunity of saying that I feel the greatest doubt as to the expediency of calling the Conference together at all. It is meant, so far as we can understand it, to effect a change in the Law of Liquidation; but that law was not passed
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  through the agency of airy International Conference, but by an International Commission, and in the ordinary course of diplomatic communications. In regard to this the old legal maxim holds that the same power which ties the knot may also undo the knot. But there is a, perhaps, more serious objection than that to which I have referred. It is impossible not to question in one's own mind what the prospects of success are in summoning such a Conference. I cannot see how it is possible that the Powers there assembled will agree to a proposal without obtaining from Her Majesty's Government a security which I do not think it is in their power to give. What I mean is, supposing that Her Majesty's Government make a request for some concession on the ground of these enormous deficits—which, as I have said, amount almost to a state of bankruptcy—must not the answer be, what security is there that next year, or the following year, there will not be a recurrence of these deficits? What security can the Government give, what answer can they possibly make to such an objection? The only possible security would be a re-establishment of order, on which a general confidence would follow; but that security does not exist at the present time. That confidence has broken down and gone to pieces under the administration of Her Majesty's Government in Egypt, and it is impossible not to ask Her Majesty's Government how that security is to be provided. Then, further, how can any reasonable person suppose it possible that you could limit the debate in this proposed Conference to mere questions of finance? Finance means one of two things—retrenchment or taxation; and then comes the question—Retrenchment in what, or taxation of what? Retrenchment in what particular Department? Taxation on what particular class? Finance, in this instance, means opening up the whole administration of the Government of Egypt; and I am, therefore, totally at a loss to know how you can bring the Representatives of the various Powers to discuss the finance of the country without trespassing upon the question of general policy. Her Majesty's Government have already, by implication, admitted that nothing would be more dangerous, or more compromising to the interests of England in Egypt, than to

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  discuss the whole question of policy and administration in an International Conference, and that, in fact, it might amount to opening a door which you can scarcely hope to close again. This very Memorandum to which I have referred, and which, I presume, I may quote, is an illustration of what I mean, because in one part of it it is stated that, although there has been an. enormous deficit, the Khedive has spent £500,000 sterling for the recovery of the Soudan. This last point brings in the question of policy, in that the burden is shifted most unwisely—and, as I think, injudiciously—from the shoulders of Her Majesty's Government to those of the Khedive. As to the recovery of the Soudan, I will say nothing beyond expressing the opinion that a single word from Downing Street would have stopped the march of Colonel Hicks and all the subsequent disasters that followed it. It is said that the Government have secured the assent of all the Powers to the Conference, and I sincerely hope it is so, for nothing would give me greater satisfaction than to have that knowledge; but I must own that there are very few signs of that happy concurrence and concord. As far as the Foreign Press is concerned, I must say that it is almost entirely opposed to any proposal for Foreign Powers to take part in this Conference. Certainly the news that we have seen this morning that Russia has taken advantage of this occasion to annex Sarakhs, which has been hinted at before, does not improve the situation; and if the report be true it only shows the value of the sympathy and co-operation of Russia. We are now, in fact, reaping, in a great measure, the results of a very impulsive Prime Minister. We are reaping those results in the hostility—the patent, manifest hostility of the Porte, and possibly the coldness of Germany. There is a great deal more that might be said on this subject. I have simply stated, from my point of view, the very obvious reasons which have induced me to doubt greatly the political wisdom or the public expediency of the Conference at the present time. But if that Conference is to be held, it is very important to know what the terms and basis of it are. I see numberless difficulties, and what is much worse, a great many dangers ahead. There may be opinions and engagements to which we may be com-
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  mitted, and which will be dangerous hereafter. Again, I say that, under these circumstances, what we desire is to have light thrown upon this question. We have been too long in the dark, and it is very desirable that the Government should give us some general knowledge of the state of the case. I think it is extremely likely that the noble Earl opposite will tell me that I am premature in asking for this information, and that I am embarrassing the Government in asking for it. Well, I am really afraid there is no alternative. According to him, either I am too early or too late. The Conference at this moment has not met, and it is for that reason that I propose this Question. I know, if the Conference were sitting, the noble Earl would tell me it was contrary to precedent to express an opinion while negotiations were in progress. Therefore, I am on the horns of a dilemma. I must ask the Question now, or not at all. Under these circumstances, I press for the information, feeling that I am performing a public duty in doing so.
  EARL GRANVILLE: My Lords, I own I was a little surprised when I saw the Notice of this Question on the Paper. I thought one of the objects of the noble Earl was to make a personal explanation, and to explain what he had said on two former occasions, on which he said I was entirely mistaken. I really do not think that I did make a mistake. The noble Earl's speech with reference to which he said I had made a mistake was as to the deportation of convicts by the French to Australia, which was brought forward on two occasions by my noble Friend behind me (the Earl of Rosebery). What was the language on both these occasions of the noble Earl? He said that he really wished the Government would understand the importance of the question, and he assured us that the Australians were very much excited on the subject. He went on in this sort of way, and said that really he must press upon the Government that they ought to make diplomatic representations to France upon the subject. I appeal to your Lordships—is it likely we are ignorant of all these things? And when he gave us this lecture, was it entirely out of place for me to remonstrate against his assuming a monopoly of the knowledge that this was an important question? The noble Earl made

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  very great fun of what he considers to be a difference of answer of mine from one given by Mr. Gladstone in "another place." Considering the hundreds, almost thousands, of Questions and answers, I cannot always undertake to give an explanation of an answer that was given; but I must say that, in this instance, the reply is a very obvious one—namely, that the two answers were perfectly compatible. I said here, and Mr. Gladstone stated in the other House, that answers had been received upon this Egyptian Conference Question of an affirmatory character. When asked to produce these answers, amongst the many reasons which may be stated, I think there is a very strong objection against doing so. But there is also this fact. The answers we had received were not written answers at all, but mere oral communications. That, I think, rather disposes of the alleged difference in the answers which have been given. Then the noble Earl goes on to refer to the objects of the Conference, and he says he cannot understand why we are to have a Conference. I am not going to argue the case with the noble Earl; but I may say this much—that when the Powers of Europe have an international right, and you wish to interfere with that international right, I do not think that the idea of consulting with them on the subject is perfectly monstrous. The noble Earl then went on to say that they must have information on the subject, and that they had suffered enormously from our reticence. I have a sort of recollection of a reticence on the part of the Government we succeeded. I think for nearly 18 months the public and the two Houses of Parliament were not aware of a great change of policy and all sorts of intentions with regard to Afghanistan, and yet the noble Earl objects to our keeping our own counsel even for a week or two. The noble Earl says he has a right to ask all these things. I deny it. We have heard lately of several new departures on the part of the Conservative Party with regard to policy. It appears to me that the noble Earl wants to bring about another great change of policy, which is this—to transfer to Parliament the negotiations with Foreign Powers. Now, it may be that the noble Earl only intends that the House of Lords should take the position which constitutionally the Senate
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  of the United States has a right to take; but you may depend upon it that if we were to take away from the Crown the conduct of negotiations, there is another place that would not be slow in following our example. I must decline, and I cannot conceive anybody blaming me for declining, to enter into explanations with regard to negotiations which are at this moment actually going on.
  THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, I think the noble Earl shows undue susceptibility when he is indignant with us because we press upon him the importance of the serious questions which occupy the public mind at the present time. He should remember a little of the recent history of his own Government. It has been a history of long inaction and neglect, broken only by those spells of activity which have been brought about by the interference of Parliament. The policy of the Government has been bad enough; but it would have been twice or three times as bad as it has been if it had not been for the pressure which has been applied in this and the other House to induce the Government to attempt to cope with the great public dangers which their negligence has brought upon them. I think my noble Friend is quite justified in sounding a warning note with respect to this Conference. Whatever the rights of the Crown may be with respect to negotiations and the communication of its intentions to Parliament, we at least have the right to criticize, and it is a right we are bound to exercise when we think great public evils are impending. I confess that the reticence of the noble Earl fills me with some alarm. I am sure he is too good a tactician to adopt it if he could avoid it with safety to his own objects. I cannot believe that he would be so reserved if there were no other intention but to alter something of the Expenditure or something of the Revenue of the Viceroyalty of Egypt. If it were only an intention to correct something in the Law of Liquidation, to allow some Revenue to be applied to a purpose which had not previously been permitted, it would be so simple a matter, so free from any dangers, that I am sure the noble Earl would himself have come down at an earlier date and have told us something of the intentions which the Government entertained. There must be intentions with respect to this Conference

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  of a far more wide-reaching character, involving far more delicate questions and far more dangerous issues. The Conference is beset with many difficulties. I do not know, when the noble Earl talks of the duty of consulting other Powers when you wish to modify an international right, that he intends that doctrine to be rigorously applied. Is he going to apply it in all its integrity to Turkey? Turkey is not only one of the Great Powers, and admitted to the Concert of Europe by the Treaty of Paris; but Turkey has a special claim to be heard in the disposal of Egyptian questions. It is especially necessary to appeal to Turkey upon the question of finance. If you intend to ask for outside authorization the first step you must take in order to smooth, the path of your finance is to raise a loan; and raising a loan is positively prohibited by the Firman which makes the title of the present Khedive to his Throne. If you are to consult other Powers, as the noble Earl says, whenever you intend to interfere with matters on which they have international right, the first Power that should be consulted, and from whom consent should be obtained, is the Empire of Turkey. But that is not all. The Law of Liquidation does not impose the consent of the four or five Powers known as the Great Powers. It does not concern their interests alone. It is a law having for its object the protection of the individual interests of creditors belonging to various nationalities, and those nationalities are not only belonging to the Great Powers. There are Sweden, Spain, Greece, and other Powers. Is this Conference to contain them all? If it does not contain them all, how will its structure be conformable to the dogma which the noble Earl has just laid down, that when you interfere with the international rights of other Powers you are bound to consult them? My Lords, the evil which I dread, and which I believe many men in this country dread, when we heard of this Conference, is, that it will not be concerned with finance alone; that by hook or by crook the whole question of Egypt will be brought upon the Council Table, that the position which this country possesses in Egypt will be made dependent upon the assent and arbitrament of the Powers who sit around this Council Table, and that it will be under the cover of the European Concert that
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  Her Majesty's Government will extricate themselves, with little honour, from the embarrassments in which their policy has involved them. My Lords, if that is the object with which the Conference is summoned, or if that is the object which is contemplated, it is one of the most dangerous to the British interests that any Minister has ever devised, because it proposes nothing less than the sacrifice of that position which we have obtained in Egypt out of regard to British interests, and which, without sacrificing British interests, we cannot abandon. I am not going to speak of the past, or of the Dual Control. It was an arrangement which answered, I believe, admirably whilst it existed; and with reference to its death, there is that difference of opinion which often occurs with respect to an individual's death. His friends think that his life might have been saved, and the friends of the doctor hold an opposite opinion. In my opinion, the Dual Control died by reason of the unskilful treatment with which it met; but I cannot expect noble Lords on the opposite Bench to agree with me. The point on which they will agree with me is that it is dead beyond recall. Well, what I want to. insist upon is that the issue of this Conference, if it touches anything beyond finance, cannot be a revival of anything approaching to the Dual Control, or anything in which France should be our only partner. If anything touching the Government of Egypt comes out of this Council it will be a multiple control; and a more complete device for insuring permanent anarchy, for paralyzing the power of England in Egypt, and compromising all the interests she seeks to guard, it would be impossible to conceive. My Lords, there is no instance of International Government ever having produced anything but evil. I earnestly trust that, though the noble Earl will not tell us precisely what the aims of this Conference are, he will banish the possibility of such an issue from his plans and from his mind. At all events, I am convinced that any result of this Conference which shall leave the action of Her Majesty's Government in Egypt less free than it is now will be condemned by the people of this country. You cannot hand over the Government of Egypt to other hands than your own for the present. Having destroyed all that is strong and vigorous in Egyptian institu-

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  tions, you cannot leave it to the anarchy you have brought upon it. You must work out for yourselves, by your own strength, the difficulties upon which you have entered, the problem you have yourselves by your conduct laid down; and I earnestly hope this Conference will not be made a screen for escaping from the responsibilities you have incurred.
  THE EARL OF KIMBERLEY: The noble Lords who are in Opposition have a great advantage over us, because they know they can make speeches which, from the nature of the case, we cannot even attempt to answer. I rise merely for the purpose of saying that, while we feel bound not to reply, it is a new and peculiar mode of advancing the Public Business in the interests of the country for the noble Marquess, after he has been told it is impossible to give any information, to get up and make such a speech as he has just delivered. It is very easy for noble Lords opposite, after they have been told that it is for the public; interest that Questions should not be answered, to get up and say—"Oh, just what we thought; you have some dark design." That, I repeat, is a very easy but not very admirable mode of procedure, or the most calculated to advance the Business of the House.

  HOUSE OF LORDS—THE ELECTRIC LIGHT.—QUESTION.
  THE EARL OF MILLTOWNasked Her Majesty's Government, Why the electric light, which has long since been successfully introduced into the House of Commons, has not been introduced into this House, and whether it is intended so to introduce it; and, if so, when? He had to complain that a Vote had been granted for the purpose of introducing the electric light into both Houses; but, while the House of Commons had taken care of themselves, the House of Lords was left with an illuminant which had almost gone out of fashion for public buildings.
  LORD SUDELEY: My Lords, in reply to the noble Earl, I have to state that the First Commissioner of Works has the whole question of lighting in the Houses of Parliament with the electric light now under consideration. Plans and estimates are being made out, and it is intended, if possible, to light
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  up with the electric light, not only the Library, Corridors, and Lobbies, as has been done in connection with the House of Commons, but also, in this case, to light up the interior of the House of Lords itself. The noble Earl has referred to the fact that last year a small Vote was taken to light up the Library. This was undoubtedly true; but when the First Commissioner came to go further into the matter, he found that, owing to the very short time your Lordships sit in the evening, it would be most uneconomical to light up only so small an area, and that it would be better to wait until it would be possible to light up all the Lobbies and the House itself as well as the Library.
  THE EARL OF LONGFORD: Does the noble Lord mean that we must wait 12 months for the electric light?
  LORD SUDELEY: I endeavoured to explain that there will be no difficulty when it is found possible to light up the whole area, and not only a limited section such as the Library.

MARRIAGES VALIDITY—PRETENDED CLERKS IN HOLY ORDERS.

  QUESTION.
  LORD STANLEY OF ALDERLEYasked the Lord Chancellor, Whether the marriages solemnized by a man not in Holy Orders, who fraudulently obtained curacies in several dioceses and parishes during six years, are valid?
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR, in reply, said, the attention of the Attorney General was directed to the case; and he had very little doubt, if the Acts were at all as the noble Lord understood, that the law would be found not ineffectual to punish this description of fraud. With regard to the marriages which the person in question was said to have solemnized, he was happy to be able to state that, according to the best authority which he had been able to consult, there seemed no reason to suppose that those marriages, if contracted in good faith and in ignorance of the incompetence of this person, would not be held good. But even if there should be a doubt on the point, he had laid on their Lordships' Table a Bill of a retrospective as well as o prospective character, which he hoped would for ever set at rest all doubts with regard both to marriages solemnized in places which, for some formal reason,

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  were supposed to have insufficient authority, and also marriages solemnized by persons incompetent by law to do so, but where the contracting parties acted in good faith.

PARLIAMENTARY PAPERS—DELAY IN DELIVERY.

  QUESTION. OBSERVATIONS.
  THE EARL OF GALLOWAYasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether he can explain why the Parliamentary Papers, "Egypt Nos. 12 and 13," which he placed on the Table of the House on the 28th April, extracts from which appeared in The Times and other newspapers on the 2nd of May, were not delivered to Peers until midday on the 3rd of May? He complained that similar delays were not uncommon; and he wished to know how it was that such documents appeared in the newspapers before they were in the hands of noble Lords?
  EARL GRANVILLEsaid, he was rather alarmed when he saw the Question; but he was somewhat re-assured when the noble Earl asked it; and he felt that he could answer this Question, at any rate, without reticence, and without detriment to the Public Service. The fact was, the Papers were laid on the Table of the House on the 29th, not the 28th of April; and the printer reported that a full supply had been delivered to Messrs. Eyre and Spottiswoode with instructions to strike off a certain number of copies for the use of their Lordships, and some delay, owing to pressure of work, had occurred in doing so.
  THE EARL OF GALLOWAYsaid, he thought that it was remarkable that the Papers dated the 1st of May had appeared in the newspapers without having been presented.
  EARL GRANVILLEsaid, that it was impossible to prevent any member of the Press buying copies of the Papers and publishing them next morning; and he did not understand why this attack had been made upon him.
  THE EARL OF HARDWICKEsaid, he thought that the answer of the noble Earl was hardly to the point, which was that important telegrams had appeared in the morning papers without having been presented to their Lordships' House.
  VISCOUNT ENFIELDcalled attention to the fact that important public documents had appeared in the morning papers of that day which had not been distributed to Members of that House.
  EARL GRANVILLEsaid, that he could not make himself personally responsible for the delivery of every packet of Papers.
  THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURYsaid, that it was constantly the case that Papers were distributed in the House of Commons and published next morning without having been delivered to their Lordships. He had no wish to make an attack on the noble Earl; but they did not know whom else to attack.
  THE EARL OF KIMBERLEYreminded their Lordships that the House of Commons sat later, and that it would thus happen that Papers might be delivered there which could not be delivered to their Lordships.
  THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWNsaid, that the grievance was a real one, and it had happened over and over again. He thought that the fault must lie with the office connected with the printing of the Papers.
  House adjourned at half past Six o'clock, to Thursday next, a quarter past Ten o'clock.